ohOne thing led to another and then I was topless on a couch and then a cardiologist, with a wrinkled nose, was explaining to me that everything was fine, except that my heart was a little… weird? I don’t remember the exact words, but I think they amounted to something more than “eccentric,” much less than strange. Although I was researching something completely different, I had noticed that a valve there was a little strange, definitely unrelated to the problem I was here for, and unlikely to affect my future health in any way. But now that he had seen it, he thought it would be best to tell me. But it’s better to know, I asked, right? He shrugged. “Sometimes?” he said, noncommittally. “It’s complicated.”
At home, I found myself more aware of my heartbeat and hearing unusual sounds. When, a few months later, I had what turned out to be indigestion, I went to the doctor assuming it was that valve, preparing to, perhaps, burst. I have no history of anxiety, I had always been largely disinterested in what was happening inside my body; I thought of it in a similar way to what happens in the vast and deep waters of the sea, necessarily unfathomable. But when this flaw was revealed to me, I became uncomfortably aware of all these moving parts, everything that could go wrong.
When I read Caroline Crampton’s recent intimate study of hypochondria, A body made of glass, with its precise explanation of health anxiety disorder as “a perceived illness of the body that exists only in the mind,” my hand immediately went to my chest. Crampton traces the rise of potions and devices that promised relief from imaginary illnesses from 18th-century quackery to today’s wellness industry, with things like Zeebo pills (currently £73 on Amazon), advertised as a placebo, in which “ you are the active ingredient”, and technology plans in which every part of our mind and body can be observed. But, ask, can we know too much? I thought about Crampton’s book as he read recent reviews about increasing blood sugar control and the Zoe app. These are part of a growing trend towards personalized diets, but, along with other criticisms (including a lack of evidence on their effectiveness), Professor Partha Kar, NHS national diabetes adviser, told the BBC that the use of monitors continuous glucose monitors (designed for people with diabetes) when there is no health reason to do so, can lead to an obsessive focus on numbers that, in some cases, “can translate into eating disorders.”
These are apps for “well-worried” people, healthy people concerned about their health, a growing market at a time when new technologies and the old Internet are fueling anxiety by offering vast knowledge to anyone with Wi-Fi. It is a successful business model in the sense that it is both for those concerned with good and a creator of them. Parents are particularly vulnerable to marketing, and their health anxieties are projected onto their children. in this month New Yorker, Jia Tolentino details her efforts to hide her pregnancy from her phone. This meant: no buying baby clothes online, no period tracking, no pregnancy apps; she wanted to avoid being monitored, which is particularly complicated when it is advisable to monitor oneself.
Between the births of my two children, the technology offered to parents who wanted to follow their pregnancies (through, for example, additional ultrasounds) and observe their baby (using devices such as bears with hidden cameras or disks to attach to the diapers that tells you when your baby turns over) has exploded. In 2020, I was surprised by how difficult it was, for example, to buy a baby monitor that didn’t include a camera, didn’t require a Wi-Fi connection, or didn’t capture my data. And yet, despite the appetite for parenting technology, Tolentino finds that it very rarely leads to better outcomes for babies, but instead exacerbates—or, worse, creates—the anxieties these devices were purchased to soothe. The control that concerned people seek by tracking their babies or their bodies is an illusion.
Which is worrying, isn’t it, considering the increase in products aimed directly at them. The global wearable technology market (devices such as fitness trackers) was valued at $61.3 billion in 2022 and is projected to expand significantly by 2030. My nine-year-old son’s school friends regularly compare FitBits. And yet, there’s a chance that, for some people, trackers and the like are doing more harm than good. In it new statesman In 2019, a professor of cardiovascular medicine criticized a large study on atrial fibrillation, a common heart rhythm problem, conducted with Apple Watch owners; He said there were no big health benefits to screening these low-risk people; In short, “the kind of people who wear an Apple Watch.” Additionally, the study “will cause considerable distress” in healthy people who receive irregular pulse notifications.
Health anxiety is evolving in line with scientific knowledge, with descriptions such as “cyberchondria” (in which anxiety increases as a result of information found online) emerging and research suggesting that our new loose contact with medical knowledge It is making people’s fears worse, rather than freeing us from them. them. I am deeply bothered by the fact that technology companies are taking advantage of these fears, creating new concerns about profits. I think so, we can know too much.
Every once in a while, a small pain in my chest or a memory will bring a flutter of worry and I’ll wonder about my misshapen heart. But then I sternly remind myself that what happens under the sea, or (unless it affects my life), what happens deep inside my body, is really none of my business.
Email Eva at e.wiseman@observer.co.uk or follow her on @EvaWiseman